When presented in the context of a GUI, conventional data entry processes often provide an abundance of input options that are often ill-suited or confusing, thereby rendering the data entry processes inefficient and non-intuitive. These common existing input options are often superficial, lacking meaning or defined information relationships, and presented generically with minimal hierarchical or semantic organization. The result is redundant or disjointed without adequate visual cohesion, usually prioritizing visual display pixel space for condensing content at the expense of effectively communicating information or conveying intent and instructional use. Moreover, excessive input options also inhibit the usability of the data entry program by impairing data selection, control, and viewing work processes. Many input options are tedious and singularly tailored for a specific type or a narrow scope of data, and when used in aggregate, may create a dissonant and confusing interface, negatively impacting usability, user experience, and work productivity.
For example, FIG. 1 illustrates an example of a GUI for a program designed to capture patient records. The GUI provides numerous input options via icons 102 located along a ribbon 104 at the top of a page 100, menu options 106 located above the ribbon 104, and buttons 108 and a drop-down menu 110 located along the side of the page 100. When inputting data into one or more of the input fields 112, a user typically navigates the icons 102, menu options 106, buttons 108, and drop-down menu 110 to actuate a user state and/or locate their desired options for properly inputting, formatting, and/or modifying the input data. Because many of the user options presented on the page are unclear (visually or semantically), procedurally lengthy in a rigmarole-like fashion, demanding of precise user interaction of relatively small area pixel fields on a visual display, which requires physical and visual-coordinated precision and focus by the user to actuate the identified interface element), redundant, or otherwise inconvenient or confusing, the data entry process becomes cognitively distracting, mentally-taxing, inefficient, and non-intuitive. What's more, as a user navigates the many input options, the user is likely to select unintended user options, which disrupts the user workflow specific to the user's respective domain of knowledge and domain expertise, disrupts the data entry process, and creates a likelihood for input and data entry errors. This may have additional repercussions or ramifications.
Some programs attempt to reduce the input options presented to a user by providing various tabs, menus, and submenus that a user navigates to find a desired input option. This solution, however, requires the user to expend significant time navigating the tabs, menus, and submenus to locate a particular input option. This solution is undesirable to the user because it requires the user to shift their focus from the task at hand (the task associated with their initial need and motivation for using the program) to the task of navigating the overwhelmingly numerous tabs, menus, and submenus to locate the desired input option. Moreover, once the desired input option is located, the user must expend additional cognitive effort to understand how to properly use the input tooling, which may not always be obvious and may incur multiple and laborious additional steps to actuate the targeted input option or to input data because implementations are not always uniform or consistent. Because navigating the tabs, menus, and submenus is often a burdensome and confusing task with opaque instructional information for use, unintended or incorrect selections are frequently made as the user searches for their desired input option if the user may find the desired input option at all, and consequently, user productivity suffers.